An extremely interesting article about the Columbine killers.
A couple things I want to say before you comment (should you feel like commenting):
There are those of you out there who have no interest in knowing “why” a certain killer/terrorist/whatever does what he does. You think that that is indicative of shuffling off responsibility, and trying to find a “root cause” to put all the blame on.
But from my point of view (and maybe it’s the actress side of me, the writer, the person who wants to get inside other people’s heads):
“Why” is THE question to ask. Not to get rid of blame, not to look for someone to blame other than the killers themselves, but to ask “why” because it’s freaking fascinating, that’s why. Without asking why, there is no possibility for change or understanding.
Here are a list of psychopaths I am fascinated by, the people I always want to know more about:
— Charles Manson
— Jeffrey McDonald (the Green Beret who murdered his family)
— Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkle, Leslie Van Houten (the Manson killers
— Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge
— Stalin
— Hitler
— The Red Guards
— Any mass murderer, in general
— The Menendez brothers – I’m fascinated by them
— Ted Bundy
— David Berkowitz
— Idi Amin
— David Koresh
— Jim Jones
I don’t ever want to meet any of these people, but I want to get inside their heads. See how they see things.
What drives someone to be a dictator? What drives a postal worker to start shooting his co-workers?
I am already anticipating many of you saying, “Who cares why? Does that mean they shouldn’t be punished?”
You are mis-reading me if that is your response. You are also boring me to tears.
I am thinking of one exchange I had with a couple of you about Goldstein, the guy who blew away the Muslim worshipers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs. I wanted to know what his affiliation was, how his beliefs were formed, and I was met with a barrage of “He’s a terrorist fuckhead, that’s what he is.” End of story. Intellectual laziness on the part of many of you, a dangerous lack of curiosity. Moving on. I prefer people who are curious, in general.)
I know the “I was a victim” defense is completely out of control in this country, with McDonalds being blamed for the fact that many of us are big fat fatty fats. That’s ridiculous. I am not against personal responsibility. But cults/totalitarian societies/control-freaks in charge of large groups of people/religious fanatics and psycho/sociopaths are HUGE passions of mine.
Some of you like to collect stamps. Some of you are fascinated by outer space. I am fascinated by the psychology of mass murderers.
What does it feel like to be brainwashed? What does it actually feel like inside a psychopath’s head? How does he/she perceive the world? What exactly is a psychopath? How is it different from a sociopath?
It’s part of the reason why this website is so hypnotic to me (I am apparently brainwashed by a website devoted to cults – not a good sign!)
I’m just going on and on like this because I want to explain where I am coming from, and I really don’t want to get into any exchanges like: “Harris and Klebold were murderers! And THAT’S IT.”
Maybe that’s it for you, but it’s not for me. And I am glad of that.
For example, from the article about Harris and Klebold:
In popular usage, almost any crazy killer is a “psychopath.” But in psychiatry, it’s a very specific mental condition that rarely involves killing, or even psychosis. “Psychopaths are not disoriented or out of touch with reality, nor do they experience the delusions, hallucinations, or intense subjective distress that characterize most other mental disorders,” writes Dr. Robert Hare, in Without Conscience, the seminal book on the condition. (Hare is also one of the psychologists consulted by the FBI about Columbine and by Slate for this story*.) “Unlike psychotic individuals, psychopaths are rational and aware of what they are doing and why. Their behavior is the result of choice, freely exercised.” Diagnosing Harris as a psychopath represents neither a legal defense, nor a moral excuse. But it illuminates a great deal about the thought process that drove him to mass murder.
And:
Because psychopaths are guided by such a different thought process than non-psychopathic humans, we tend to find their behavior inexplicable. But they’re actually much easier to predict than the rest of us once you understand them. Psychopaths follow much stricter behavior patterns than the rest of us because they are unfettered by conscience, living solely for their own aggrandizement. (The difference is so striking that Fuselier trains hostage negotiators to identify psychopaths during a standoff, and immediately reverse tactics if they think they’re facing one. It’s like flipping a switch between two alternate brain-mechanisms.)
None of his victims means anything to the psychopath. He recognizes other people only as means to obtain what he desires. Not only does he feel no guilt for destroying their lives, he doesn’t grasp what they feel. The truly hard-core psychopath doesn’t quite comprehend emotions like love or hate or fear, because he has never experienced them directly.
In my curious bones. What is it like to not comprehend love or hate or fear? Are people born that way? Are people born lacking certain emotions? Or do they lose the ability to feel certain things after terrible events, or total rejection? Was Jeffrey Dahmer born without compassion? Killing animals as a small child is a clue, but did he have moments of regret, compunction? Was violence irresistible to him? Like someone else being addicted to porn, or gambling?
These are things I like to contemplate.
More discoveries in regards to the psychologies of the Columbine killers follow.
(found Slate article via Cut on the Bias)
I had a friend named Dave in high school. I think “Trenchcoat Mafia” would be the best way to describe him. He was sick. I mean, really SICK. He used to steal chemicals from the chemistry lab and try and make bombs at home (I know this sounds a bit like I should have told someone, but this was before school shootings became a semi-regular thing. I honestly thought it was more of a harmless hobby than anything else). There was a kid who went to our school in the seventies who commit suicide. A plaque and memorial tree were planted in his memory. One of our drunken evenings cruising around campus, Dave brought an axe and chopped it down. That’s some cold shit.
The thing is, when he was three years old, his older brother hacked him in the head with a gardening hoe. He was one of those kids on the small bus that had to grow up wearing a helmet to protect his head (he later got a metal plate implanted, so he looked like a normal person in high school). He was teased, torutred, humiliated and abused CONSTANTLY throughout his childhood, to the point where he literally despised the human race.
Understanding a person’s motivations or what has ultimately compelled them to inflict misery on people does NOT equal forgiveness or endorsement of their crimes. If anything, it’s an incredibly useful way to understand what we can do to prevent others from behaving the same way.
Whatever happened to Dave? Do you know?
One of the things the article says is that it is almost lucky that Harris, in particular, is no longer with us – because he could have gone on to be a Timothy McVeigh, or one of these other types who wreak large amounts of violence.
The latest theory put together is not that Harris and Klebold hated the jocks who made fun of them – but that they had contempt for them. Which is very different.
Their plans were “grandiose”, “messianic” – they wanted to get into the history books of violence. And their overwhelming contempt for everyone meant that they could have no feelings towards their pain and suffering, whatsoever.
Oh, and this is very strange: last month I went and saw a night of one-acts – all of the plays had been written by high school students, who had written award-winning plays, and given the chance to have productions in NYC.
One of them was about two kids sitting in the woods, near a tree where one of their classmates committed suicide, and having a long conversation about chopping it down. They end up doing so.
The kid who wrote the play was 14 years old. Kind of amazing.
Oh – and it goes without saying – that you do not need to divulge Dave’s fate if you don’t want to.
I knew a kid in high school who was a violent skinhead, covered in Nazi memorabilia, who loved punk music, and thrash music and who (according to my brother) loved to slam dance – but he loved to do so because he got his aggressions out, and loved to hurt people. The kid was written up in the local papers, because the school wanted to stop him from wearing swastikas, etc.
He was violent and nuts – and always had kind of a blank hostile stare. I do not know what ended up happening to him. If he outgrew it, or what…
Read the novels of Michael Connelly. He imagines great psychopaths. Start with The Poet, then backtrack to the Harry Bosch books, beginning with the Black Echo, The Black Ice and The Concrete Blonde.
Last I talked to him was a few years ago. There’s still that twinge of weirdness, but I think he’s pretty much harmless.
It was so sad — when he first meets someone new, it takes him sooooo long to warm up to them. For about the first two months he was hanging around us, every time I would say “hi”, he would grab the front of his shirt, pull it over his face and kind of hunch over, like it embarassed him to have a person say “hello”.
I think he still lives within a few blocks of me. I should check in on him.
“he would grab the front of his shirt, pull it over his face and kind of hunch over, like it embarassed him to have a person say “hello”.”
That’s very sad.
Michael –
Thank you – I will! I mean, a girl can only read Helter Skelter so many times.
You’re exactly right, Emily. Too many people think that understanding (to the extent that human behavior can be understood) implies rationalization or justification. No matter how horrific the circumstances of a person’s life may be, it does not invalidate free will or absolute responsibility for one’s own actions.
However, in an aggregate, societal context it greatly behooves us to attempt to ameliorate circumstances which are known to be important statistical predictors of violent or otherwise harmful behavior.
Does everyone have one of these people in their high school? I suppose if you have a large enough number of people it is statistically inevitable.
The “guy” in my high school walked into a class one morning wearing a stripped down AFJROTC uniform with swastika arm patch and packing a pistol. Took the classroom over, made lots of threats, waved his gun around. The school was evacuated and we were eventually all sent home. He finally made a run for it, ran out of the school and tried to run I don’t know where. He was soon captured and shipped off to the state hospital.
Red is right, the fascinating thing is are they hardwired to do this, made that way by our “civilized” society or little bit of both. The reason we should be curious is to help prevent it from happening again.
Adolescence makes many of us freaks, in one way or another.
Why some people snap, and others do not, is a mystery. That’s why I’m interested: what is it in some people (or what is it that is lacking in some people) that makes them snap?
This is kind of out in left field compared to the rest of the conversation, but I actually know someone who met Charles Manson. To be precise, she went on a beer run with him. She was in college and met him at a party. The entire experience actually prompted a crisis of faith for her and she had to call the campus deacon at three in the morning to be convinced that Manson was not Jesus.
Here’s what I always wonder. If killers are made, why aren’t more killers women/girls? I mean, they’re more likely to be sexual victims as children and teens than boys.
To respond to Theresa’s question, I would say it is largely due to the differences in how most men and women think.
Most women internalize their pain, they often develop a contempt for themselves or a feeling that they deserve the treatment they have received. Often they follow more self destructive paths as a result of abuse.
In addition, women who do attck someone, do not typically do so in a physical way. Agressive women more commonly try to tear people down emotionally and mentally.
Most men externalize it. They develop a contempt for others, a belief that there is something wrong with everyone else. They then are more likely to inflict pain and suffering on others, and men usually look to physical ways to act out their agression.
There are, of course, many exceptions in both sexes, but I believe that those are overall trends and account for the disparity.
Of course, I should add that this is a completly amature opinion based only on my personal study of human nature, in my off time. ;)
I remember the terror I felt when Susan Smith admitted to strapping her children in the back of her car and letting the car slide into a pond. I was at home with two small children wondering what it was that made her snap…I am also very interested in the “why” of it all.
When someone does something so unthinkable to most of us (as Susan Smith – or what’s her name Yates … can’t remember now) – I fluctuate between thinking “what a MONSTER” and “Wow, what the hell was going on in her head…”
I do not understand how someone could do what those women did. It is chilling to contemplate.
I think those experts are too smart. I still believe the root cause of this killing is bullying. I just realize that bullying happens at day cares when kids are only 4 years old! If bullying is not promptly controlled by schools, teachers, and parents, as it was, it is, and it is going to be, we all have to pay the toll late. As a adult, if I hit you, you likely will ask why do you hit me. But in the kid’s world, it is a bullying, and it will not be resolved by reasoning. People are too smart and accustom to such bullying behaves, and do not even care at all. The consequences are familiar too all of us. The cause may seems unexplicable in the later years.